Re: Dancing the slow hora

[Jacob and Nancy Bloom <bloom...>]

I forwarded my comments on the slow hora to Bonnie Kaplan in New Haven.  She 
sent back this reply, which she said I could post to the list:

>>
I assume you're talking about the Romanian hora Michael has taught, e.g. at
the Mame Loshn weekend where I met you and Nancy.  I recall that he did
teach some variations, attributing them to different regions.  And yes,
there are Romanian dances very much like it.  To my mind, it's why it's
very hard to do klezmer dancing without knowing the dance vocabulary the
klezmer dances drew upon.  It sure helps to be able to draw on that
knowledge for styling and variations.  By keeping in character, you can do
variations whether or not you officially learned them at a klezmer dance
workshop, and still be authentic, as I'm sure our forebears did.  It's so
hard to capture style in dance notes, though, so it really is important to
go to the workshops and learn that.

There should be something in the notes I sent you from that weekend about
the hora variations Michael taught then.  I'm sorry I don't have time to
dig them up just now.  I'm in between way too many business trips.  If you
don't have them, remind me in about 2 weeks, and I'll search them out.

This hora is a slow dance, with the beauty in the styling.  It's not a hora
as we think of an Israeli hora in any way.  The music is slow.  In the
e-mails, someone mentioned feeling as though they were running when they
used faster music.  Either the music or the steps, then, were not what I
recall.  The dance I remember is very leisurely and graceful.

For the basic step, I'd count the hora as long-short, long-short,
long-short, long, as suggested in one of the e-mails you forwarded; or
slow-quick, slow-quick, slow-quick, slow; or step-and, step-and, step-and,
step -- 4 measures of 3/8 where you always step on the 1st beat & you step
on the 3rd beat in the 1st 3 measures but not in the 4th measure.

On styling, I remember seeing it with a deep backwards lean (from the
waist) on the 4th measure.  I asked Michael about that, and learned that a
deep lean was exaggerated.

As for music, there are lots of recordings with this hora rhythm.
"Zapochkela" comes to mind, but there are lots more.

I saw Michael recently.  He was here doing a play put on at Yale, based on
the Sholem Ash play "The God of Vengence" and the obscenity trial
concerning it.  Michael was music director & also performed as a musician.
The music fit perfectly and really added to the the play, which I
recommend.  It was done by a drama student here, Rebecca whose last name
maybe is Taichman  This was it's 3rd or 4th incarnation.  I understand it's
going to get revised again, and, I expect it eventually will make it's way
to NYC.

Bonnie Kaplan